In an economic down-turn where budgets and margins are tight, it's vital to capitalize on your offerings and keep an eye out on what the competition is doing. Thanks in large-part to the Internet, we have an abundance of tools to help us learn more about our competitors.
Let's face it. Web users are impatient, and grow increasingly so as the years pass. If you're lucky (and I mean really lucky), you'll get 3-8 seconds to grab their attention. That's because users don't read Web pages word-by-word. They scan. As a result, important website copy needs to hit hard and hit fast. It needs to be scannable, and there are a few good ways to accomplish this.
Two weeks ago, I noticed a billboard that caught my eye for several reasons, but mostly because it was a good case of billboard advertising gone wrong. Some of the issues may seem obvious, but let's really think about what's really going on here. Get ready for a full-on advertising autopsy.
Putting 301 redirects in place for every page or file name that's changing in a transition from an old to new site is how you tell search engines what's new and how to handle the old. Over time, they'll eventually remove the old links from their index and replace them with the updated ones. This is how you hold your ground when it comes to maintaining search rankings.
Web videos have been around for awhile, but this past year, they've really increased in both views and user-generated content uploads. As broadband penetration increases and the ability to easily upload videos to websites or social networks increases, we'll continue to see video content complimenting or flat-out replacing static text on a given Web page. After all, why read when you can watch.
I've recently finished another great book by Seth Godin entitled "the dip". In this economic climate, I think it's a must-read for those who are hitting a dip, or rough patch, in their lives/careers. Now's the time to reflect and make some changes. Life is short, and we work too hard to not enjoy what we're doing every day.
Many of us believed the inception of the PC and the Internet would help us cut down on our waste and paper products. However, as we quickly found out, this was not the case. In fact, in most cases, it's created more. As Earth Day approaches, let's all take a little time to look at our business practices and see how we can use the online channel to reduce, reuse and recycle.
A business card is your first opportunity to tell your story and establish your branding image. People may toss it after they've digitally entered it into their email contacts list, but it's still your first impression, your first or second touch point with a potential client or customer. So make it great. Make it standout. Make it memorable.
According to a TMP Directional Marketing Local Search Usage study, 31 percent of consumers are now using search engines as their primary resource for local business information. Combined with IYPs (Internet Yellow Pages) and local search sites such as Google Maps or Yahoo Local, the online channel now accounts for 61 percent of all primary sources of local business information. Take a look at your analytics, and I bet you'll see some of your referred visitors are from local search. If not, then it's time to get local.
